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Readers of both this blog and Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal Blog may have noticed that we both had the same blog title yesterday.

Nick and I just chalked it up to ‘Great Minds Think Alike.” Or at least that’s our story and we’re sticking with it.

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Thanks to my friend Ed Hurlburt of the RV Tips section of Facebook, I found out about these really neat LED lights. Ed has had good luck using them to replace the small T8 fluorescents in his RV, so I thought I’d give them a try.

They are actually 12v LED Running Lights for autos and trucks. Ed originally found them on eBay starting here:

When I ordered a set on Tuesday, they had 6 left. When I went to order more today, they had 3 left. So I ordered all 3 since that’s how many more sets I needed.

When I ordered the set on Tuesday, they were $7.99 with Prime Free Shipping. But when I went to order today, they had jumped to $8.99. But now the Amazon ad says they’re out of stock from this supplier.

But I found a bunch of other Amazon sources, some slightly more expensive, and some with Prime Shipping.

Using the set I got in yesterday, I thought I’d just do a trial installation to see how they worked. I started by removing the diffuser cover and the two F15T8 bulbs.

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Next, to get to the 12v wiring, I squeezed the center metal cover together until it was released from the clips.

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The circuit board is the ballast that takes the 12v and steps it up to the voltage needed for the F15T8 bulb. The black and white wires are the 12 volts coming in to the fixture. Be careful though fooling around with these lights. Although there is only 12v coming to the fixture, the ballast puts out several hundred volts when you first turn it on, and then settles down to about 100 volts while the light is on.

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I clipped the 12v wires so I could feed it into the new LED strips

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The LED lights have a peel-off adhesive strip on the back so I stuck them to the top of the fixture.

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I next put the center ballast cover back in place to protect the ballast, and also to help reflect the light out.

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Here’s what the bathroom looks like without the light.

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And here’s what it looks like turned on.

Compared to the F15T8 bulbs I’m replacing, the LED light put pit anywhere from 50% more light to more than double, at about 1/2 the wattage.

For example, a Cool White F15T8 bulb puts about 825 lumens, consuming about 15 watts And a Daylight F15T8 bulb puts out about 700 lumens for the same 15 watts.

Although the specs on the LED lights call them Cool White, they’re not. Cool White bulbs have a color temperature of about 4000K. The LED’s have a color temperature of 6000K, making it a Daylight light source.

Also the LED lights put out anywhere from 1000 lumens to 1500 lumens, depending on the voltage range. ( i.e. 12.6 volts to 13.6) using about 6 – 10 watts.

And they’re waterproof, for that additional light in the shower.

I’ll probably go in tomorrow and finish up the wiring. I’ll let you know how they work out.

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A little before 5pm we all headed out for one more try to have dinner at the Sherman House Restaurant. And this time we were successful.

But a little disappointed.

One of things we’ve enjoyed so much in the past was their excellent German dishes. But now, no Sauerbraten, no Jaeger Schnitzel, and no Red Cabbage. Bummer.

But we all ended up enjoying our meals anyway. So it was all good.

Jan had the Fried Chicken, I had the Apple Roasted Pork Tenderloin, Nick had the Shrimp Alfredo, and Terry had the Chicken Robere, a sautéed chicken breast on a bed of spinach, and covered with a mushroom burgundy sauce and melted provolone cheese.

Everyone really enjoyed what they had, and the service was very good too. We’ll go back.

Wow, Greg….maybe you should consider putting together some kind of book/booklet using all your techie posts like this one….I think that would be an awesome book to have…all organized by like subject, etc. You are a handiman of many areas!!

Glad the meal was good…but I do sympathize…I too enjoy German food and would feel sad not to get some of what you had before!!